MONTICELLO, Ark. – A season-high 17 service errors nearly cost Southern Nazarene the match against Arkansas-Monticello inside the Steelman Fieldhouse, but SNU rode the rollercoaster match to a five-set win over UAM on Friday night.
 
The Crimson Storm (15-7, 5-3 GAC) had to rely on a high hitting percentage in the final two sets to avoid dropping a costly conference match against the Blossoms (7-14, 2-6 GAC). After falling behind 2-1, the Storm relied on their lethal offensive attack and great defense to push them to their fifth conference victory of the season. SNU hit .311 in the fourth set and .389 in the fifth to seal their win, and nobody had a better offensive night than Bailee Turang.
 
Turang led the way with a season-high 22 kills to go along with 20 digs. That now makes four straight matches where the senior has tallied at least 17 kills and 12 digs. Turang was one of two Storm attackers to reach double-figures in kills as junior Kayla Thomas recorded 10 kills to go along with seven digs. Meagan Ellis and Bailey Grimes each added nine kills for the Crimson Storm as Ellis also tallied 17 digs and Grimes chipped in with a block.
 
Senior setter Kylie Smith recorded her fifth straight match with at least 40 assists as she finished with 43 on the night. She also added 10 digs and now has four straight matches with a double-double. Sunny Batschelett came off the Storm bench to provide eight kills for SNU.

Arkansas-Monticello got things going in the first set by jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead. The Storm collected themselves to later tie the match at 12-12, before UAM went on A 4-0 run later in the set to take a 20-17 advantage. The Blossoms closed the first set with back-to-back kills to take an early 1-0 lead.
 
Southern Nazarene came back in the second set to force 10 attack errors for Monticello as they jumped out to a 14-9 lead. UAM came back on a 7-2 run to tie it at 16-16, before both teams went back and forth to make it 22-22. A couple of attack errors from the Blossoms and a kill from Batschelett tied the match for SNU at 1-1 after they took the set 25-23.
 
Monticello came back in the third set and held the Crimson Storm to its lowest hitting percentage set of the match at .122. They jumped out to an 18-13 lead and that was too much for SNU to handle as they dropped the set 25-20 to fall behind 2-1.
 
SNU head coach Kevin Ingram lit a fire under his team for the fourth set as their .311 hitting percentage in the frame silenced the Monticello crowd for the time being. The Storm tallied 16 kills in the stanza as they took the set 25-22 to force the match to a fifth set. Southern Nazarene's offense didn't cool down in the final frame as they tallied nine kills and cruised past Monticello 15-7 to send the home crowd to their cars disappointed.
 
Southern Nazarene will have very little time to rest as they travel to Magnolia tomorrow morning to take on Southern Arkansas at 11:30 a.m.